The Rum Diary - is coming soon!

"At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going."

Hunter S. Thompson - The Rum Diary

Hunter S. Thompson originally wrote The Rum Diary in the late 1960s but it didn't get published till the late 90s after being revised by the author.

It's about a freelance journalist (Paul Kemp - one of Thomspon's alter egos) who goes to work for a paper in Puerto Rico in the 1950's. Soon enough, the immersive heat, copious amounts of rum and the lust for one blonde with an almost unpronounceable name ('Chenault' - like the car?) reach a cataclysmic climax.

The book is more straight up than Thomspson's other works. The narrative is fixed and there is a clearer sense of structure as opposed his more freewheelin' works of gonzo. His writing conjures up the setting and environment perfectly without explicitly going into detail or history, yet through his elegant and punchy prose, the town of San Juan rises from the page into the readers mind as do the characters and all there quirks and idiosyncrasies.

The film adaption has been made, but not yet released. It is directed by Bruce Robinson (Withnail & I) and stars Johnny Depp...obviously!

It also stars Amber Heard

Damn!!!...anyway...

The reason for the delay is that Depp is currently filming another pirate movie and the distributor don't want to release The Rum Diary until Depp is available to promote it. So unfortunately it's gonna have to wait untill next year for a release.

However on the plus side this gives you time to read the book if you haven't already, or just read it again!...grab a bottle of rum and a bag of ice and just keep going!